Sam nods. Rick offers him the gum again and Sam takes it and sticks it in a pocket. “Thanks.”
Rick thumps Sam’s shoulder. “Come on, we gotta change up.”
The locker room is quiet—almost resigned. It’s like the fourth quarter of a dud game, Sam thinks, when guys are beginning to lose their belief they can win.
As he returns to the floor, the girls are heading for their locker room. Fingers on her hips, the Mutant drifts along with her teammates without even glancing his way. The flaring edges of her hipbones are visible in her spandex capris and practice shorts. The jersey of the shorts folds from the iliac crests toward the vee of her crotch like the crossed tips of wings over her sex. He feels a rush of heat to his face, his groin. Soon she’ll be in the bleachers, watching, and soon they’ll be in the truck and he’ll be asking and maybe soon they’ll be back in the Mill. In the cubby.
“Styles!” Coach screams in disbelieving pain. “What are you doing?”
Fucking up. Red-faced. Two left feet and his head up his ass. His concentration’s shot. Never mind pulling the team together, he can’t pull himself together.
And outside, after the torture is over and Coach has nuked his ass and everybody else has left without speaking to him, outside in the frigging cold dark winter night, she’s not waiting. He doesn’t see her on the road. Two hours gone, she could be anywhere. At her old ladies’, or home, even. With time for a stop to fuck her good buddy Chapin for a little weed. No big deal.
Cranking up the volume of a Godflesh tape until he can’t think around it, Sam heads for home with a headful of hardcore noise. It is something like the sound-effects tape Rick once gave him that was nothing but cars crashing, only better. More like Godzilla stomping the shit out of Detroit. He wants to help.
Tipping a miniature berm of herb along the rectangle of paper with practiced concentration as he crouches at the low table next to his waterbed, J.C. sings the occasional phrase along with “Hotel California” on his stereo.
“Hurt my feelings, D., you giving me a line of shit about being in training so you couldn’t party with me New Year’s Eve. Then Lexie tells me you partied with the whole frigging hoop team.”
Cross-legged on the bed, the Mutant winds a bandanna around her skull. She has taken off her laces and high-tops.
“I wasn’t partying with them. It was just some place to be so I didn’t have to go home. And it was nothing like the whole team. Anyway, there’s two varsity, two junior varsity and two freshman teams, boys and girls, you chauvinist pig.”
J.C. pinches the ends and sets the cigarette aside while he builds another one. He grins at her. “One of the worst. You know what I meant. Anyway, at least I heard from Lexie. More than I can say for you.”
“What do you care? You never gave a shit before.”
J.C. reaches out to pat her knee. “Chill out. Whatever you did, you did. Whatever I did, I did. You belong to yourself. I belong to myself. No big deal. You would have had a good time with me, that’s all.”
Satisfied with his work, he lights one of the doobies and takes a hit. When he offers it to her, she flips her fingertips at it in a dismissive gesture.
“Sure?”
She rolls over on her stomach, though the undulations of the bed make her feel a little queasy. He tokes again and climbs onto the bed next to her.
“So Fosse put his Blazer in a snowbank or some shit and you all caught the wrath of Samson. And the highhanded prick pitches my goddamn bopberry into the fucking woods. Cost me money, D. Somebody owes me.”
She ignores his hand settling on her bottom. He strokes the muscular rise and slides his hand between her legs, easing aside the chains. Silently, she cants her bottom a little to make her crotch more accessible to his fingers and he moves closer, losing interest in the whole question of Samson.
“Been a while,” he murmurs and tugs her tighter against him, hardening his cock against her bottom. “Jesus, D., you got a primo ass.” The waterbed rocks in motion with him. Face away from him, she takes a deep breath of the smoke in the air. He rolls away from her, reaching for the joint, bringing it directly to her lips, approving as she takes a hit. She lies back against him, and he pushes up her T-shirt.
“Off with the hardware.”
Slowly, she removes the chains from her waist and he gestures for her to continue. She takes off her shirt and he pulls her down next to him again. He takes a hit from the joint and blows it into her mouth. It comes to her it’s been a long time since she was this relaxed. Maybe it’s the smoke but she can’t get him into focus, he’s familiar to her but also strange. Not-Sam. Weird.
J.C. pushes her head down to his crotch.
“Sister D.,” he whispers, “Sister Do Me.”
Slowed by the dope, she is confused when he begins to be rough with her, suddenly thrusting harder, choking her and hurting her mouth. Before she can react, he pulls out and begins to yank down her jeans and the spandex capris underneath. She tries to help and he knocks away her hands. A little frightened, she becomes passive. To her surprise, he produces a rubber and dons it. He hasn’t done that since she started taking the Pill.
As he moves in her, she is surprised by the gradual response of her own body. In a moment, she is moving with him, and he becomes very excited and much rougher, until he’s slamming at her and the response in her dries up and she just lies there until he’s finished.
Flopping onto his back next to
